Publicly and privately administered parking programs continually struggle with the seemingly intractable problem of providing parking services for an area having a limited number of parking spaces to an ever increasing number of vehicles. Specifically, there is an increasing effort to manage the problem in residential communities, where cities and towns attempt to provide the local residents with a place to park. This effort generally involves the use of permit-based parking programs.
Permit-based parking programs restrict parking privileges in an attempt to assure residents that the local residents are able to find a place to park their vehicles on a street or in a lot. The goal of such programs is to encourage persons to obtain a permit for parking privileges, or, alternatively, move non-permit holder vehicles, to metered, time-limited, or garage parking.
However, such programs are very difficult and expensive to implement and manage. Inefficiencies in the administration of these parking programs and a lack of enforcement of the regulations are rampant problems facing today's parking programs, leading to a significant dilution in the intended benefits.
For example, a small municipality that institutes a permit-based parking program may face the task of issuing from 20,000 to 500,000 permits per year, which requires a complete overhaul of the municipality's existing parking regulation enforcement plan.
While the issuance of permits assists in the institution of parking regulations, use of conventional permits includes many disadvantages. Conventional permits are typically embodied as a sticker that either affixes to a window of the vehicle or a hang-tag that hangs within the vehicle (i.e., from the rear view mirror). However, it is often difficult to determine if a permit is present based on a visual inspection of the vehicle, due to a variety of factors including the presence of tinted windows and/or the arrangement of the vehicle (e.g., angled parking). This creates a significant burden on the individual responsible for inspecting vehicle to determine if the vehicle is legally parked, referred to as a Parking Enforcement Officer (PEO), who must locate and read the permit via a visual inspection of the vehicle.
In addition, conventional permits are frequently stolen or “scalped” (i.e., sold by the authorized permit holder to an unauthorized person). With no efficient means to track the permits administered under a parking program, such misuse is extremely difficult to detect and terminate.
Therefore, there is a need for a method and a system for efficiently and effectively implementing, managing, administering, and monitoring a permit-based parking program.